Human rights investigators race to document Syria killings on social media

WARNING: This story contains graphic details.

Hundreds of civilians in Syria have reportedly been killed amid clashes between interim government forces and pro-Assad regime loyalists. But far from happening in the shadows, the killings — in some cases, summary executions in fields and villages — have been widely publicized: often posted first on Telegram groups, and shared widely across social media.

The content provides a glimpse into what’s happening on the ground during Syria’s ongoing civil war. And human rights investigators are racing to collect and analyze it all — in some cases, before it’s deleted by the perpetrators or removed by social media moderation systems. Gathering and analyzing the videos is a crucial step in establishing a base of facts and a foundation for future investigations or accountability efforts.

“It’s very important for us to do that quickly because automated content moderation can often remove harmful or graphic footage if it’s reported — even if it’s not reported, if it’s just flagged automatically as violent content that may be in breach of platform policies,” Benjamin Strick, director of investigations for the U.K.-based Centre for Information Resilience (CIR), told CBC News. 

“Even some of the content from the weekend where we saw an increase in violence has been removed.”

Verifying killings

The CIR has launched a new project documenting violence in Syria — including against civilians — in response to the recent killings, which began after fighters loyal to the deposed Assad regime, toppled in December 2024, reportedly ambushed government forces last week, killing civilians. The fighting spiralled into revenge killings perpetrated by both government and non-government forces in areas populated by members of the Alawite religious minority — though they are the second-largest religious group in Syria — a group to which former president Bashar al-Assad belongs. 

Already, multiple human rights groups have released reports combining official figures, eyewitness testimonies and verified video from social media to shed light on what is occurring. Those include the Syrian Network for Human Rights, Human Rights Watch, and the Syria Justice and Accountability Center (SJAC).

Collecting and verifying videos of killings posted to social media can help separate truth from misrepresentation, Strick said. Numerous videos circulated online in the wake of the violence, showing old incidents of violence that were portrayed as happening recently.

Verifying footage also gives the public essential insight into what really occurred in detail during the campaign of killings, where victims may not have taken videos, but the perpetrators have. 

“It’s really identifying what happened on the ground,” said Strick. 

CBC News’ visual investigations team, working with the SJAC — an NGO whose stated goal is “meaningful justice and accountability for Syria” — has verified the authenticity of three videos circulating online and collected dozens more that remain unverified.

CBC News journalists collected videos, some of which SJAC also shared. Using reverse-search tools and analyzing them for identifying uniforms and insignia, the team determined the videos hadn’t been previously shared. We shared these uniforms, patches, and insignia with SJAC researchers, who confirmed CBC’s findings and added detail. 

CBC News is showing only static portions of the videos because of their graphic nature. The victims in the videos have not been identified.

In one, gunmen wearing the uniforms of Syria’s public security forces drag a person dressed in civilian clothes into an alley before shooting him. Five bodies can be seen in the video. Another gunman, dressed in black, can be seen filming the bodies with a phone. A photo shared by Syria’s state-owned news agency indicates that at least one of several men arrested for participating in extrajudicial killings was present in this video.

In a second video, a group of men wearing black uniforms emblazoned with the Syrian flag drag a person into a ditch beside a road, beat him with rifles and then shoot him. The camera pans, revealing a truck covered with the insignia of Syria’s security forces.

In a third, two men fire at a body on the ground, which was moving moments before. They’re wearing fatigues and patches that appear to be the Seal of the Prophet insignia worn by various Islamic militias in the country. At least one more body is visible — it’s unclear whether they are alive or dead. 

Arrests of government forces members made

In the violence, 172 members of security, police and military forces were killed by Assad-linked fighters, according to a statement from the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) sent to CBC News. At least 211 civilians, including a humanitarian worker, were killed in direct shootings carried out by these groups, the organization said. 

“It was just panic mode, calling on armed groups and anyone who can join to fight to help to back the government,” Noura Aljizawi, a senior researcher at the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, told CBC News.

Revenge killings ensued along the coast. Witnesses told The Associated Press that Alawites were shot dead in the streets and at the gates of their homes. Alawite houses were also burned and looted, witnesses said. Government-aligned groups were responsible for the deaths of 420 civilians total and disarmed fighters, including 39 children and 49 women, the SNHR said in a preliminary report. 

CBC News could not independently verify these numbers. The UN says it has verified 111 total civilian killings in the clashes, with the process ongoing. 

Syria’s interior ministry said Tuesday it had arrested four people in connection with attacks on civilians. A televised report from a Lebanese news agency also showed that two other men have been arrested, and linked them to a video circulating online wherein two men on a motorbike spot another man in civilian clothing and execute him, seemingly at random. 

Identifying crimes from social media

Aljizawi told CBC News that videos posted online by armed groups have been key to identifying crimes in the past.

“Many of the atrocities that we identified … were through videos and photos they took themselves and they posted on social media,” she said. “It’s not unique to the Syrian conflict.”

Among the videos that circulated online were older videos of killings being passed off as being from this week.

“Oftentimes there’s a level of propaganda that surfaces online to either downplay, discredit or just undermine the events that happen on the ground,” said CIR’s Strick. 

Disinformation helps further divide Syrians, Aljizawi said, as pro-Assad forces can claim the acts were undertaken by the new interim government, while others may use the videos to deny that atrocities occurred in the first place.  

“It’s harming victims. It’s harming the community. It’s harming this very fragile, very critical transition. And it’s not absolutely not helping in making peace or any sense of stability in the country.”